aTLANTIC ISLANDS TRIP
SUNDAY, APRIL 7: 8AM: Wake at 3:20AM to find my watch stopped, pee, look outside to see that the sea is calmer and the moon is shining just out of range of my vision from the porthole. Wake again with my watch stopped and find that it's 7:20AM, so I put on the lights, dress to go out and shit, where I hear about six people gathered in the conversation area listening to someone's news broadcast, and back to my cabin to transcribe the dream that I remembered quite fully, and catch this up to date by 8:02AM, JUST in time for breakfast. Oatmeal with brown sugar scrounged from a TABLE to which Jules took it (though it WAS he who had requested it from the kitchen, to be fair), and juice and grapes and a hunk of scrambled eggs with one slice of toast, which prompted a tale FINALLY told by Paul of when he was (he currently lives in OREGON, it turns out) a Platoon Leader on a Matson Line ship conscripted to take wounded from some islands in the Pacific to hospitals in the Philippines (?), which were VERY short of food, so that one morning they were told NOT to eat the scrambled eggs, because one of the cooks had vomited into the entire vat so that they COULDN'T afford to throw it out, so they just had to mix it in and serve it. Chatting took til about 8:40, by which time it was too late to do anything but return to the cabin and read BH until 9;30, when Bob's talk on Darwin was to begin. He starts be re-mentioning Lawrence and Loren Blair, who made "Ring of Fire," and that Loren had DIED last year (and, to race to the concluding conversation) at age 53 when at a cocktail party in New York a terrace he was on collapsed and broke his leg, which developed into an embolism which went to his brain, killing him. He was also very close to his daughter, which kills my theory (though it really SHOULDN'T) that the brothers were gay. Darwin first talked about radiative development, and was retrospectively diagnosed as having trypanosomiasis. He said Galapagos finches underwent adaptive radiation. When Bob mentions the downfall of the "earth as 4004 years old" theory, I thought of Bishop Ussher, and immediately wondered WHEN Poe's "Fall of the House of Us(s)her" was written, since he WAS interested in science and religion. Another name Darwin had for this was progressive divergence. Wallace later comes interested in SPIRITUALISM, just as NEWTON did. The Blair house shown in "Ring of Fire" was sold (between Ubud and Mas) because of the development of commercialism and overpopulation of that area. I think of a marvelous idea for a science fiction story: a talk among the LAST Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Jew, Buddhist, Taoist, Protestant! WHAT a wonderful time THAT would be! The US vetoed the international rules for the environment proposed in Brazil a few years ago as Reagan was being treated for his heart disease with a drug derived from a plant from the Brazilian forest canopy. Bob talks of a "Wayan" (which means "first-born" so there are only four names in Bali) who bought a hillside across from her property so that her view would never be destroyed, then connected the rice terraces on her property as swimming pools with connecting waterfalls and cascades, and also has a 200-seat open-air restaurant for which she cooks the best food. When I asked who was in charge of Indonesia now, he said it was still Suharto, who was good for the country because he kept it right-leaning toward the United States, rather than left-leaning toward Communism that Sukarno had the tendency to do, but he's talking of retiring, and his son, Bang-Bang, could certainly NOT be in charge since he's only a playboy and nothing more, except that his best friend is a Chinese-Indonesian, which will make the Chinese financing of the country's rich continue, though they haven't been very good about distributing the wealth to the lower classes, in which Malaysia has been doing somewhat better with its large oil revenues. The informal conversation finally ends at 10:55AM, and I return my pointer and finish this by 11:20AM, figuring to go on deck to see the waves that are washing over the walkways around the ship, and maybe catch an early glimpse of the first of the Cape Verde Islands. Andy passes by, seeing me through the open door, and says NOTHING about Scrabble, so, well, so much for HIM! Seas are not so spectacular on deck, and everyone scrambles downstairs at 11:50AM for lunch of fetuccini Alfredo, which is only pasta with the slightest bit of visible herb, with which bread and butter seems a luxury, and even catsup seems an improvement. Graham and I chat after lunch that HE can think of no luxury hotel in the south of England, and Rose mentions "The Inn on the Lake," near Guilford, as being very pleasant. Back to get BH and read to page 514 by 1:55PM, looking out to see the waves splashing high over deck three's outer passages, and then back to the cabin to find the laundry FINALLY back: all of it: five socks and shorts and four undershirts from FIVE days ago, and shirt and trousers from TWO days ago. Now we just have the islands to put up with today. My black shoes continue to turn silver with salt, and maybe they ARE ruined completely and I'll have to buy a new pair. I'll continue to wash off the salt and see if it can come to an end; now, they look pretty ratty. Not to mention FEELING ratty around my ankles where I've worn nothing but slippers for the past four days. No news of any sighting of the islands, two of which we sailed INVISIBLY between earlier this morning---how sad that we couldn't have deviated SOME little bit to at least SEE some of the others! Silly sailing! Graham is negotiating with Bill for a trip around Iceland, to which he's been once and is looking forward to seeing again. I don't think I could put up with THAT life! Now at 2:07PM, let's see if the island is becoming visible OTHER than on the radar screen. The fog seems to be closing in even more, so I watch a few flying fish metallically escape from the ship's wake, then go down to start Scrabble with Diane. I win two and we can see some of the Cape Verde Islands out the port windows, so we go on deck and watch what looks like a monastery or a lighthouse vanish to our right as we near a smoggy island, but then turn right and go around the island to see a large community in the setting sun. It's VERY windy on deck, and I take my camera bag up (thank goodness the video doesn't DEW) and take one and another set of pictures as we sail in. On the bridge, before, I heard Bill vainly trying to reach someone, and even the Captain suggested other channels. Then Olivia said that when the Captain DID get someone, he closed the bridge to passengers. We anchor in the middle of the bay, not even in the shelter of the harbor, and the concrete buildings look like caricatures of Mexican drawings of square buildings with square roofs and square window openings (with no curtains or gingerbread or other decoration of any kind except wash color), with a concrete plant dividing the beach from the docking area to the left (with the Lusitania Ferry that would defy anyone's idea of safety), and the industrial area to the right, with the airport, two sets of windmills: one HUGE hundred-or-more foot trio and a smaller maybe-fifty-foot sextuplet, and one large and a number of small rusting hulks to act as breakers, which are obviously needed, since the waves crash what must be at least forty feet up in waves of foam. Cars and busses can be seen rushing along waterfront roads on their Easter evening business. More photos and then the 6:05PM announcement that we've been given permission to dock, so we'll be pulling up anchor in fifteen minutes. We wait, and some go down for jackets in the unusually cool evening, even without the driving winds, and about 6:30 we start very slowly around the mole toward our docking area, the sun setting about 7:05PM in an orange mist behind the next island, leaving the solitary rock with the house in the middle and the flight of steps to the apex in the dark. Watch the black boys run along the dock, and suddenly I wonder what security our DOCKED ship has? We dock, they talk to us, we throw them (Joe Smith's term) the monkeyfist to play out our hawsers, and they throw what look like giant potholders between the ship and the concrete mole. Finally stop, passengers and crew chatting off the gangways, and at 7:25 I decide to take a shower, finding the shower room empty, and get out with my stuff to find Tony saying he's next in line. Wonderful showering with NO motions from the ship at ALL, and wash and rinse and dry and out at 7:40PM to find him arguing about exactly what it means that the three showers in the Sauna are available to men from 7 to 8PM. I look at my terminally all-white shoes; the bottoms of my socks are VERY wet, which means the shoes aren't even DRIED OUT yet, and I deodorize myself and swab out my ears and get this out to finish at 8PM on the dot, called in for dinner, with an unusual item scheduled for 9PM: Sacha on the guitar with Andy's slides. Who's going to be watching the rooms for the local black boys robbing them? Terrible to be so chauvinistic!! But those are the feelings I have, and I'm sure others share them. In for rather good borscht, hot, with cabbage and beets floating in it, with the taste, as Don said, that they'd already added the sour cream. Then I'm first to the buffet of turkey (white meat) and carrots-rutabaga and mashed potatoes, then first for seconds for lamb (too minted) and stuffing and gravy (great on the final mashed potatoes. Then Bill announces we can go ashore! Dessert of apple strudel is good too, and then I dash to room to take camera bag and get off ship about 8:55PM. Walk to the turning and take the turn right, along vacant streets for a long time until I hear kids, and turn up and back a block and there's the town square: conservatives and radicals, boys and girls, men and women, older men and no older women, families with kids, single mothers with kids, sometimes MANY kids, and a small group, as I circumnavigated and then sat on the wall on a well-lit corner, of what might be gay guys, though the two girls who ended up talking to them could only by a STRETCH be lesbians. But the ONE guy was a DOLL with VERY wide shoulders, a V-shaped torso wearing a white shirt with a cowboy-silver design in front, and narrow pants. Some guys with shirts and ties, some with baggies, others with afros and dreadlocks. I sit for about an hour, brushing off Bob and Andy, totally avoiding Graham, Armand, Dorothy, Dick, and the Yanofskis, so much so that when I walked back to the main street and SAW them there, I turned BACK into town and saw ANOTHER main squared-building, a further street than looked olde European, and signs to Alto Simiglio, or something that we'll probably tour tomorrow. A lot of the buildings seemed ABANDONED, and some of the streets had really pathetic attempts at planting that seemed doomed to drought. Down THIS street again to find a throbbing disco, and I'd like to photograph the fronting bas-reliefs during the day, AS the map of Mindelo that was lit, but didn't take the paseo, which was like any others, even to their studiously avoiding me, but the OTHER white-types were SURE obvious! Back to see Trudy and Don and Ann coming from the OTHER way, where they said they got lost and went too far and saw elegant housing uphill, and THEY didn't know what the fish were, undulating their "skirts" about them, HARDLY rays, but VERY angelic and strange, in HUGE numbers everywhere. Bill met me with what I HOPE is a joke: my bank has merged and my bank-card is no good after April 14. MAYBE I can try for more cash in the Canaries, or even ashore tomorrow. Smile at the guys were ARE guarding our ship, and get to my cool cabin (below 20 degrees Centigrade!) to start this at 11PM (early breakfast tomorrow at 7AM to start our tour at 8AM!) and finish at 11:10PM, still probably getting enough sleep to make up for the oversleeping for the past WEEK, and though I was quite bored with the thought of ANOTHER island, just stepping on the land and looking at the people and buildings and crazy fish and even cruising guys, and I want to see more and look forward to tomorrow when I won't have ANY time to write this before ending the day, and so I'll make my copies of THIS file and start a new one NOW before bed at 11:30PM.
MONDAY, APRIL 8, starting in NOTEBOK9, now at 7:25AM 4/8/96. Thought I would have gotten to bed BEFORE 11:30, I figured I'd get AHEAD of the day and do the PILLS before I went to bed, so I got to bed at 11:40PM, then am QUITE sure that I did NOT get to sleep before midnight, because the LACK of noise and vibration was SO extreme I just COULDN'T get USED to it enough to fall asleep with ease. Slept THROUGH, having VAGUE memories of dreams that I don't recall ANY details of at the MOMENT, though they may come to mind as I type. Find that the watch ALSO goes through the night, and the call comes from Graham at 6:50AM, seemingly the only one of the staff (except Kevin) who's UP early enough to make a call. The cabin is still very cool, and I dress quickly, but when I stick my head out the door it feels about the SAME outside, though I'm sure in the sun it will warm up. Into the john to not quite satisfactorily shit, but maybe that'll come after breakfast, rather than demanding attention on the two tour scheduled today. My place at the two-couples table seems dark, so I join Frieda, who really IS sweet to make up for Ruth's abrasiveness; Graham, bragging about waking up the tourists; and the Yanofskis, who look ready to start the day but who did NOT stop at the Gelateria, or whatever they call it here. Found the two schedules folded together at the table and took one back to my room before breakfast. Left the table at 7:25AM to transcribe my notes, but they didn't take very long. Frieda said that there WERE older women walking around when THEY got there "earlier," but I thought I was the first one out; maybe they got out before me. Some complained of still legs from walking the "mile" into town and back. Bright sunny day, a work-boat passing as I stick my nose out, and many have noticed the strange "angel-wing fish," but none have an official name for it yet. Even with lack of sleep, I feel eager to see what the tour has of the town (glad that it's GUIDED; I don't feel I have the energy to SEEK what to look at, only enough to sit back and enjoy it), taking a pad along for the random note. Now at 7:33AM there's surely over half an hour until we all gather on the pier for the busses, but I have NOTHING in my mind to do, having put my four postcards in the bag, taken some extra dollars, taking only $35 and my "bank cards" both of which I might try if I need to, along with the hat which will probably be needed for the heat. I have my undershirt on for the coolth of the room, but will probably leave it on to furnish heat before the day itself warms up, and then take it off at noon when we come back for lunch. Though Bill MENTIONED the possibility of going to a beach after the morning tour, I'd rather spend the time in town at the Artisan Center I saw at the east side of the park, or even wandering some of the more colorful side streets of town, than getting wet for an hour or so, even if there's a chance of snorkeling. Maybe buy a bathing suit in town? Take earplugs along in case the bus and tourists get raucous during the day. The only "fault" I notice so far with this PWP is the "not line-spacing" around a SINGLE space after an end-punctuation mark. If I ADD a space, it will line-space at the end of the sentence, but if I reformat, the added line-space REMAINS at the front of the line if it breaks in the same place. Just rambling on to TAKE up space, listening to the sounds of tourists in the hall through the open door, smiling at Frieda's assurance that HER watch has been known to stop where there's too much vibration during the night, and awfully aware of the rank smell from my shoes, which I'll refrain from washing from salt TODAY and do it TONIGHT, hoping to get MORE of it off, though they may be ruined completely. Noted that the 9th item in the file list gets put at the top of a SECOND column that I can right-arrow to get at, rather than going all the way down. Pleased to have noticed a couple of guard-like individuals at the head of the dock, as well as a security man at the head of the gangplank, so I feel easier about leaving my possessions while we're AT a pier. Wouldn't do for their public relations if tourists got ripped off, I'm sure, but the poorer citizens wouldn't care about that, and would sure steal if they could. The official sitting NEXT to me last night had the bright eyes and "vertically compressed" type of dark face that reminded me of the VERY long-cocked fellow in the Bjorn Borg videos, and I fantasized his having the same donkey-dick and passion; as I noted that the VERY handsome fellow at the Vern-and-Pat was so eagerly and bright-eyedly chatting that he hardly had time to EAT. Saw a few of the same bright-eyed and eager faces at the paseo, but no OVERT gayness in any of the passers. Bill comes on the horn at 7:45 to remind us to take sunscreen and bathing suits. I'll note the first and not the second. That MUST be the end of this, now stretched into the second page. (9:05AM 4/9) SO much happened since the last entry! Ask Bill for the FAX that was sent me, and JOHN VINTON says that the ATM card expires on April 14, so NOT my Visa card, thank goodness. I'll make a point to try it in our two stops at the Canary Islands, since I doubt they'll have a machine in the Cape Verde Islands. There's a hassle with the busses: the Bremen has docked right behind us, and the first, rather drab bus that appears is said to be ours, and five or six of us pile on, and then it turns out that THAT bus is for the Bremen, and ours have yet to arrive. Caroline grumbles as she gets off. Another bus arrives and promptly fills up with almost everyone, but there are no decent seats left (on the FIRST bus I had copped the FRONT RIGHT SEAT, quite ideal, but had to leave it behind) so I wait for the second. We're only TEN on that at the start, though we pick up a few more as we make more stops. We load at 8:15 and are off at 8:16, leaving dock at 8:20AM. Lots of professional beggars with their long faces, putting their pointed fingers down their throats as if they were starved, but no one on the bus has any pity on any of them. We take off in a roar of dust, past the town square, and up to the top of the hill to see the old fort and a meteorological facility which gives a great panorama over the bay, the surrounding mountains, and the lighthouse-rock in the bay, as well as the beautifully flat-painted square buildings, many of which are under construction along the road as we drove up, the top one having four floors and will be quite elegant if it is ever finished, since MANY new constructions appear to have been terminated before completion. Then down into town and stop in front of the hotel, being told that the post office is just behind up. Being in the last seat in the last bus has its advantages: as the doors open I dash out in front of the pack, up the pink building's stairs with its many governmental and electrical-seeming and telephone-connected offices, I see the sign for "Filatelia" and grab the only clerk available for four 38 escudo (we're told the exchange is 80 escudos to the dollar) stamps for my four post cards, and "one of each." She tears off about 8 stamps and seems to say that's all: I ask for definitive, and she says "These are all I have." (Andy strolls in from the hall now at 9:15AM, saying he expected to finish the game last night, but I said I was up on deck, and he says "Oh, I was thinking you might be up there," and we agree to finish the game when he sees someone with the keys to the doorway behind which the game is now locked. He expresses interest in my computer, saying that his crashed, and as he stands rocking in the pitch of the ship, I can see his eyes going over the books on my shelf, and for a moment his head dips toward me as he (probably) reads my title "The Penguin Book of International Gay Writing." No what?) Put the four stamps on the postcards and give them to her, noticing that she hasn't even given me THAT 38 escudo stamp, she charges me $5, which I happen to have. As I'm about to leave, I see Alan talking with ANOTHER clerk, and HE's getting OTHER stamps, and they say these are "complete sets," so I ask her how many she has, and she gives NO idea verbally, but reaches into her top drawer for the top folder in a pile of about 18-20, each of which contains a set. I ask AGAIN for definitives, "You know, 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 20.." and she says she DOES know, but does NOT have them. She starts tearing off individual great stamps and the guy from the bus nudges my shoulder and says we're leaving! I nod. She goes deeper and deeper into the stack, and I pull out a $20 and tell her it can't be more than that, and she smiles and assures me it won't be. I see a cover and ask how much that is, and she says "First day cover," and "various prices" and checks her list and said that one is $2. I ask her to add it to the pile. The guy from the bus comes up AGAIN and insists we're leaving, so I tell her that's all, say "Two minutes" to him, and she totals up a remarkably round $10. I give her the $20, mention that the clerk down the way has lots of US dollars (I gave her my $5, and others gave AT LEAST five singles) and she comes back with $10 US bill. Race out to the bus, but the others are still wandering about, so I go back to take a picture of the friezes outside the disco, and up the street, and back on the bus to photo the kiosk in the park, and others finally wander back from the various shops, the Malones ALWAYS among the last, and Andy gives us a little lecture about returning to the bus on time. Then we're off down city streets, I take a shot out of the BACK of the bus, and past the pink Presidential Palace and the school and hospital, and past the fish market too quickly to get any shots, and continue past the wrecks to turn in on a road past the Shell oil-storage depot and trundle through a dusty back road past shanties with chickens and children wandering around, with working or unworking OLD windmills, and lots of road-trash and plastic and broken glass. Finally to the sewage treatment plant at 9:50, where the birders see their Turnstones and other rarities, including the Igor Sparrow, which I'd never heard of. The smell from the sewage is AWFUL, and Olivia mentions that they "obviously don't treat the gray water, which can be reused in the home, separately from the black water, obviously defecation" and the operation is a pilot project by a Swedish firm, so she's delighted they're getting something accomplished. Ruth and Frieda take off toward the cane-harvesters, so I follow them out to get a picture, then go out one pond more to take shots of the distant birds, then back to the bus in the allotted 20 minutes, having requested from Graham that we RIDE to the beach and then RETURN to town, and Andy responds with his trademark "NO!" and explains we're going to do something like that ANYWAY. At 10:10 they poll the two busses and find that NO ONE wants to actually SWIM at the beach, so we'll go there to SEE it, taking a ride in the mountains, and if there's time left stop off in town for more shops. At 10:15 we go out to the wrecks, stopping to take pictures of and through them, being told that the large building is an anchovy-export factory, and that some of the ships are from the time of the Millers, who exported coal to Cardiff in the 50s. Photos #14:17 and 18 are of the Pink Presidential Palace and the school in back of it. We leave the wrecks at 10:30AM and get to Baie de Gatos at 11AM: it might be developed into a play area with people and money, but the single wind-surfer, the waves breaking over the concrete pier that led out to the slide-in pond at the end, the half dozen complexes of conical air-vent-at-top tourist cottages, the few elegant townhouses incongruously placed without any shading of tree or bush or planting next to the crushed-shell beach, the scrubby bushes and large pebbles that made walking difficult, the single closed snack kiosk, the concrete stage which, the guide explained many times, had been host to rock groups from around the world: USA, England, Germany, Netherlands, with canopies over the participants, platforms built for the sound equipment and the television cameras---maybe it happened once? Pat goes wandering off and Vern takes my seat for a bit to wipe off his bare feet. The surf is glorious but rather frigid and remote beyond the rock barriers, and there seems to be NO life at all in the tide pools next to the jetty. Back into the busses with pleasure to be away from the unrelenting heat of the sun, and leave at 11:15 to continue heavy bouncing in the back of the bus as we pass heartbreaking evidence of endless toil terracing and rock-lining hillsides to encourage plantings and discourage erosion, many gone to ruin, some with enormous boulders breaking the barriers as it rolled from near the top of the hill. Some ruined houses, some closed, some brightly painted with cars parked outside, others only fragments of wall left standing. Enigmatic block houses in the valleys with divided watercourses, plans for elaborate housing blocks with only pebbled dividers left, with a concrete slab for a floor or two at widely separated locations. Trees were scrubby and stunted, most of the plants were dying for lack of water, and only a few gardens showed dried-mud puddles around vegetables painstakingly grown in the drought. But of course they had to KNOW from the windward/leeward pattern of winds, clouds, and rainfall that this would be hopeless? On returning to the town of Mindelo I took a picture that I thought, erroneously, was the top of what MAY have been Mount Sosse, since that was the name on one of the city busses, at #14:23, but from the ship it was clear that it was the lower, more eastern summit that I'd taken. Take a CORAL souvenir from near the volcanic summit of the pass, having passed VERY little traffic except for the stopped Toyota truck with its load of rice or grain bags forlornly on the road behind it. Back through town at 11:35 without stopping, sadly, so Olivia never DID get the roll of color film that she wanted from what I still owe her from dinner. Off the bus at 11:45 to dash back along the pier, constantly harassed by beggars and kids, one of whom said something suspiciously like "Want fuckie?" and finally found a few stray examples of what I called "skirtfish" to photo in still and in motion, which I'm eager to see and show others who seem not to have noticed it at all! Fantasies of the ship pulling out without me, but back to the gangway at 12 noon, just as Ian shows up in a cab with a dread-locked girl in the back, and Bob was seen with a girlfriend too. In to lunch of chicken ala king, actually very tasty, and chocolate chip ice cream for dessert, one of the nicest meals yet. Out at 12:30 to watch the departure from the dock, and see the Bremen, and then the Bremen LEAVES and I take pictures of it, only LATER to hear from Bob that this was once the FRONTIER SPIRIT, and I didn't recognize it AT ALL, and even marveled at the luxury of the double windows in the dining room and looked at the cabin windows, portholes, and the suite's balcony on the bridge level, and what I hope was a shirtless hunk atop the roof of the level over the bridge, which I did NOT recognize as the Dolphin Lounge. We're SUPPOSED to leave at 12:45, but with officials running up and down the dock, beggars getting shirts, bread, cans of fruit juice, and other items from OUR stock from the cooks and helpers, Ian running back and forth giving his girlfriend food and T-shirts, and Bob reaching down to hold his girl friend's hand for the last time: I had VERY negative thoughts about the crew! An old man constantly prayed attention and benison from the ship, even after he was given enough to fill a small plastic bag that hung from his wrist along with bead necklaces he gave to the waitress when she gave him something that she pantomimed was soap, which he repeated in elaborate, whole-body motions of washing, even to the crotch, as if she might have been interested. I stand where there's no railing, getting a great look at the crunches of ship against concrete pier, wondering WHEN the hell we were leaving. It would have been better to relax, since it was "only" an hour late at 1:45 when we pulled out: later Bill would say there were other boats coming in and out, and I recall photographing fishing boats pulling in their nets seen above the seawall. The cadging of gifts, the motions of the burly fellow at his bare feet, then his motions to the feet that had SHOES on, then to his mouth, then to the OTHERS that got something when he didn't, really turned me off. Bill had said the crossing would be one hour, but we dock at 3:15, probably NOT assisted by the pilot who'd eaten his prosciuto and cheese and drunk his tea while was on the bridge, having FORGOTTEN Bill's statement that the bridge was to be kept clear when the pilot was on: Armand said that Bill asked him politely to leave, but he suffered ME to be there until we almost DOCKED, when I felt I HAD to leave, hearing all the ship-to-shore conversations, and even the Captain's waffling on where he wanted to anchor and how much draft he needed. Onto the top again, the waves subsiding when we reached Porto Nuovo. (Closed down at 11AM to meet Andy, but he came down the distant hall shrugging his shoulders, so I shrugged back at him and returned to find that I'd NOT shut this off when I closed it, which explained the feeble whine I'd heard from it when I left it a minute ago. He comes in, saying he's found no one to open it, glancing pointedly at the vacant upper bunk as he entered, and we agreed it would probably be after lunch.) At 3:19 hear an announcement from Bill saying "Meet in the dining room in five minutes," and we all gather and eat chocolates waiting for him to arrive at 3:31, saying of course that eight immigration officials showed up to check out the ship, even though they'd JUST left the SAME country an hour ago, and he'd been told by the agent ten MINUTES ago that it would NOT be necessary, but they had to go through it all AGAIN. He says that THIS tour (unlike the one written about last year) would go OVER the island to the GREENER side, so I was glad I recharged the camera battery. Joke about not starting for half an hour and suggest a Scrabble game with Diane, who says "Of course not, we're leaving right away," and then Andy pipes up, "I'll start a game, if you'd like." So I get the game and we set up and he goes first, but he's studying his first word when Olivia drops into the deserted lounge and says the busses are THERE and we're all ready to GO. I race out and look at the three FULL minivans, then get waved into one being filled at the FRONT, and get the seat NEXT to the driver, others piling in behind in pairs. We pull out at 3:45, some official getting in next to me and putting me in the uncomfortable middle, but still in front. Past the throng at the gate (not unlike the disappointed mini-driver at Sao Vincente who thought he had ten of our passengers until Bill came along and told them this was NOT their bus!) of Santo Antao (what's the difference between Sao and Santo?) (Portuguese and Spanish?) and up through the tiny town, across the bridge over the river that had obviously vanished decades before, and stop in front of another office at 3:50, where the hassle continues (at least the official next to me gets out, so I enjoy the unencumbered seat for the rest of the trip!), ending at 4:02 when the driver goes into a parking lot, to hear Andy's furious "NO!" from the back, and he hops out and talks about a taxi, and they HAD agreed that Bill would return from this "outpost" ("He could walk," grumbled some passenger.) by taxi and not taking the passengers' time by returning in one of the busses (like the "tour" in Tinski, or whatever the name of Graham's "northernmost town" was, which started by taking one of the passengers to the airport, which no one else even cared about seeing). THAT settled, Andy returned to the back of the minivan and the driver took off through town, getting a good lead on the three trailing vehicles and allowing great photos of them DOWN to the Porto Nuovo, the ship, and the acres and acres and square miles of disconsolate terracing (selecting rocks from fields of rocks hardly different one from another), up a road made from these rocks flatly laid with rudiments of curbs and even, someone noted, a raised centerline. Take photos, then get out the video camera and attempt to capture the wild ride UP the hill, finally crossing enormous ravine-ends to get to an almost Italian hill-town type of scenery with tall pines and greener grasses and more luxurious houses. Stop at an overlook with an INCREDIBLE view over an enclosed valley I called Shangri-La, growing "kava" as the driver called it, flanked by hills of Chinese-scroll steepness and beauty, surrounded by the tops of the lower clouds! A few farmhouses "owned" these terraced lands, and on the other side of the road were unobstructed views down over the winding road and the port and miles of surrounding surf beaches. Reach the top at 5PM, so I figure we'll be lucky if we're back by 8! At another stop with a view over the clouds to the BACK of the island, someone identifies the growing greens as sweet potatoes, saying they've seen peas, corn, sugar, potatoes, beans, and a few other comestibles. People wave at us, and some of the dwellings are little more than stone-age huts with mud walls and grass roofs, with donkeys, chickens, and children intermingling. The scenery gets even wilder as we seem to drive roads suspended between mountaintops, looking over sheer-sided valleys eroded by now-dry waterfalls. More stops at a two-sided view over two different valleys where the driver goes even farther up the road than I go for a view, probably to take a pee (the only stop on the way BACK was a driver who had to pee, Armand remaining wonderfully continent!). Huge expanses of clouds below us as we drive across, past valleys with serried ranks of mountains in varying degrees of mist and cloud, practically unphotographable, huts clinging to sides of terraced gardens and farms on which an occasional worker can be seen literally clinging to the face of the cliff, sometimes with a goat nearby, sometimes with a child working alongside. Always cheerful waves from passing kids, though some shout what may be curses at invading tourists who don't stop to help or even consider them. See a town below at a beach, and wind down and down through ever more lush surroundings and dried riverbeds to the little town below, where, rather than returning or turning right to another road as I'd thought, but continued along the oceanfront, passing a ledge from which spouted three or four geysers from each wave, all waves of a uniform blue-green of incredible clarity, only broken by rocky ledges from the shore or black, glistening uprisings offshore. We turn off just before what looks to be a final town (the cliffs below appear to have no road cut into them), and I record that at 6PM we may be turning back. Down a road that gets more and more dusty, but the trees sprout egrets on their tops, and there are red hibiscus and purple flamboyan trees, and at 6:25PM the cars stop and even the leaders wander around what we're doing here, puzzled when Ian appears to be scaling a wrought-iron fence around a private property. A skinny boy dressed only in jockey shorts appears and announces, "Je m'apelle Oscar; (in French) What's your name?" I try a short conversation, but when he comes to ask for a "stylo," but indicating some kind of line on the inside of his forearm, I say I don't understand. Then the pilot, who's come along as the only person who knows English AND the local patois, announces that we've stopped at "this property," and are invited to enter and wander along its tesselated paths, through vegetation along its drained pools, looking at abandoned fountains and derelict steamrooms---not even a bathroom apparent. It's getting dark, despite the egrets sighted in trees and the colored leaves, and we go ON for a distance before the lead car turns around: I guess the pilot decided the "onward" road didn't lead back to the ocean, so we had to turn around and drive all the way back, waving to the same kids we'd waved to before, dodging the same goats and kids we almost ran down before. It got darker and darker, but we were pleased to see that many properties had electric lights in the streets in front of it. By 7PM we were back to the ocean, tooling along the shore even faster. The other cars had outstripped us, though at times we could see them ahead, and the surf lost much of its power without the sunlight shining on and through it, but there were actually a few kids playing in it, which we hadn't seen earlier. At 7:15 we leave the ocean to begin our climb, with a sign saying that Porto Grande is 38 kilometers. Many of the peaks were still light as we climbed, but when the car ahead of us stopped (for the driver to relieve himself), we started climbing in pitch blackness, seeing only the lights in front, and when we rose into the clouds, the headlights illuminating a massy gray off cliff-sides, and once a chilling passage through a small fragment of a cloud that made us thankful we didn't have a MORE clouded road. I kept looking from side to side, though when I looked directly out the driver's side, he at times looked at me in an alarmed way, as if I had been trying to get his attention. He drove with complete concentration, glancing off the side of the road only five or six times during the entire trip. We finally reached the summit, descended and climbed endlessly until we could see intermediate lights below, with very dim lights shadowed in cloud ahead which I took to be Porto Nuovo, until the changing lights made it clear that the FAR lights were Porto Grande on Sao Vincente! Finally get down to the ship at 8:20, and I race to the room to get the cameras off my back and pee, then in for dinner at 8:30, starting with a good tomato and walnut and apricot salad, then filet, reasonably decent and in a good portion, with Bernaise sauce, and baked potatoes and mixed vegetables, mostly rutabaga. Dessert was a very flavorful graham cracker crust under a berry mousse filling that wasn't bad. Bill talks of his endless meetings at the docks, Bob talks about the day, and Graham starts talking about the birds but I leave at 9:15 to watch the undocking when I hear the motors starting up. I sit in a swivel chair during most of the crossing, then Olivia speaks behind me and we watch the crossing in increasing winds, getting to a lower deck to watch the pilot boat come out and the two pilots go down the ship's ladder and jump onto the roof of the smaller ship that bounced up and down in the waves just off the ship: touching the ship obviously produced too much pounding. We watched our ship return to the channel between the islands, sitting in the wind, and I continued to watch the Doctor as he paced and paced, like an expectant father, on the deck below, and I longed to find out what his troubles were and comfort him. Finally get down to my cabin at 11:15, partly stoned by the two beers I had with dinner, partly still dazzled with the sights of the busy day. There's a terrible intermittent banging near my cabin that I'm almost tempted to locate, but it's VERY late and I'm exhausted and crawl into bed at 11:35PM, again very late, but sleeping even though the boat is pitching.
TUESDAY, APRIL 9: Wake at 7:25AM, relieved to see the watch still running, and pleased that I didn't wake at ALL during the night. Up at 7:40, put things away from last night, shit, and get to breakfast of oatmeal, two pancakes with berry syrup, and a fresh orange that I ate at the table after the pills and tea. Decided I HAD to brush my teeth, so I got out BH and read that while brushing from 8:40 to 9. Start typing up yesterday from 9 to 9:30, at which time I go watch Graham present Siberia Revisited II, which ends at 10:15, decent until it was taken over by birds. Andy stopped by to talk about renewing our game, but he was directed to let me know when the doors to the bar would be opened. He stopped in twice while I was transcribing yesterday. After Graham's talk, I took the camera upstairs to see if I could get any good surf-shots of water on the bow, taking #16:7 and 8 of increasing waves, but missing the VERY good ones, noting that we're at 18 degrees 35 minutes north and 23 degrees 34 minutes west. Borrow a pencil and steal a scrap of paper to note the place names of the Cape Verde Islands. The peak on Sao Vincente goes to 2457 meters, or 7400 feet, while the highest peak on Santo Antao is to the WEST and is 1979, or 5900+ feet, but we didn't climb THAT one. Then back to type from 10:30 to 11, out to meet Andy to find he STILL doesn't have access to the game, and then type from 11 to 11:30 when he comes by to say "It's open." We get into the first game but have to stop for lunch, actually very good with meat lasagna cooked well, hot, flavorful, with good hamburg and tasty pasta, and the stewed fruit was quite good for dessert, being only the slightest heavy on the cinnamon. Peter is unusually communicative to me and highly recommends Ouida's "Under Two Flags" about Britain and France in---where? the Sahara? Back to the game at 12:30, which he wins about 2, playing very slowly, but he's QUITE intelligent, has a NICE way of chatting, and I LIKE looking into his blue eyes. He comes up with some good jokes and gags, appreciates when I say something funny, and we seem to get along nicely. We play a second game which I win, and he's not at all interested in a third at 3:45PM. I'm back to the room and write from 3:45 to 4, when I take the Scrabble in to the snack, a good buffet of crackers with salami, two kinds of cheese, salmon, and pickled artichoke hearts, and tap my chest to ask Diane if she wants to play and she says sure. We snack on the back table and she wins as we finish at just before 5, when I return the game to my room and pick up the video camera, because I suggested to a small group that I'd show yesterday's trip after Bob's talk, and Ruth and Frieda ask to join. Bring my notes and the pointer, and Bob talks about the Seychelles, which he says is 41 islets and five atolls further south, talking mainly about Pralin's Valley de Mai, home of the Coco de Mer. His malaprop of the day: "They became beer-drunken (drinking) buddies." He's obviously sold on the islands, but he doesn't quite sell them to others. He's finished at 6:10 and I spaced forward, which I'd forgotten to do when I rewound the tape, passing over about 450 to get to yesterday, and it's really rather BORING with the endless pans over same-seeming towns and hills, but they ARE an aide-memoire for the onlookers, who remember this or that view or hillside, so they serve SOME kind of purpose. Had trouble starting, and practical Ruth looked for Bill, who'd used it last, and he finally fixed it for my camcorder. That's over at 6:50, at which time Katie announces Happy Hour, and I get back to FINISH catching this up to date by 7:40PM, feeling slightly woozy from the boat's insistent pitching. Watch from my porthole as the bow-wave collides with the swell-waves coming in from one o'clock, and some would be colorful if taken in sunset hues, but the sunset tonight seems to have been as gray as those of the past few nights. Passengers are beginning to count the days remaining, and I am too. Andy will be getting off in just a few days, on 4/12, while Olivia is negotiating with the company to be put into a hotel on Gomera, so she can be with us one extra day until 4/13. Then on 4/15 I'll know whether Don is joining me, unless he sends a note as John Vinton did. Get ready to recharge the battery again. Feeling QUITE tired, and the room is STILL too cool, but no one else seems to mind---they feel if they get the air conditioning shut OFF and it gets HOT, no one will do anything THEN. Got to send out laundry tomorrow, too. Back to BH until 8:02PM, when I wash my hands and face and get in, AGAIN late, to sit with Ruth and Frieda, hoping to talk with Frieda, who ends up talking to the Malones while I'm stuck with Frieda. Spinach turnover appetizer is followed by rather awful veal Milanese with chard and carrots and Lyonaise potatoes, nothing of which I like very much. The milk turnover for dessert is more enigmatic than good: hard, layered, crusty at all layers, chocolate cream or something as filling, maybe it was a version of millefeuille? Anyway, then the announcement that it was Paul's birthday and he was afraid he wouldn't have enough cake to go around, but everyone was full, but I finished the chocolate-iced pound cake, or whatever it was, carefully setting my watch ahead an hour, JUST when I felt like I needed an extra amount of sleep, it's taken AWAY from me! Chat endlessly with Ruth about India and Ceylon and Afghanistan (which both of us had PLANNED to see before violence drove us away from it) and Burma and Nepal and planned travel, and I escape at (formerly 9PM) 10PM to unplug the charger and catch this up to date by 10:10PM and get to bed at 10:20PM.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10: Wake once, but then hear the message "This is your early morning call," and my watch has stopped at 7:15. Up about 7:45AM and dress and get out to shit, and by the size of the crowd at the door, look to see what the time is: it's 7:58AM, so I just wait until the oatmeal door opens at 8:03AM; I guess everyone's off because of the time change. Only scrambled eggs with two pieces of buttered toast along with the oatmeal and tomato juice and pills---also took a Bonine at about 7:30, just because I felt marginally nauseous as I lay awake in bed and looked at the bottom of the bunk above me. The sun broke through low clouds as we had breakfast, but it still looks pretty bad outside, and my thermometer reads 16 degrees, which is just under 61 degrees Fahrenheit! Resolve to get SOMEONE to look at my controls THIS MORNING. But to get away from the cold, take BH into the reading area after I finish this at 8:40AM. Then at 9:30 I move to my usual seat for a really UNinformative talk on Tenerife by Graham, from 20 years ago with his family, only saying that there's a cable car that goes near to the top of the 12,000 foot central peak. He's blessedly brief by 10:15AM, and I wait for Charles to stop chatting with Olivia about Tenerife from 16 years ago, but then wave Diane down and she agrees to play from 10:20 to 11:35, getting through three games: me 2, Diane 1, winning the last ONLY because I put down WAILING, knowing she had a blank and a Q to finish off the OTHER triple, going ahead of me---which she has the grace to acknowledge, even after trying QUINS for QUINTS, saying that it was current in Canada! I VERY much doubt it! Frieda comes to be room to verify that I've done all I can do to shut off the cold draft, and that I should get Ian in on it. Finish this up by 11:50AM. See Katie in dining room and ask if she's seen Ian. "No, but can I help?" So I show her, she fiddles and says "I'll tell the engineers." And disappears down the crew-stairway down to deck 2! Maybe something will be done? Lunch is worst yet: "pasta d'orto" is probably "pasta d'oro" and Paul says "I haven't found any gold YET!" Colored pastas, livened with catsup, with rolls and butter for TASTE, and apple tart of which I get the end: VERY little apple, much tart. End at 12:30 and Charles wants to play, so we play two games, I winning both, ending at 2:40, which is about the time that Joe Smith's playing "Silence of the Lambs" ends too. About 3:15 we're doing 9.2 knots, but that changes even up to 11, averaging around 10 knots, and I take pictures #16:9-11 trying to catch the highest seas around 22 degrees 47 minutes north, and 20-20 west. Looks like 23 degrees 28 minutes is the Tropic of Cancer (or Cancercorn, as Bob termed it), which we should make in about 4 hours, about 7:30, just after sunset. So those are my pictures from the North 20s. The Canaries are around 25 degrees, and reportedly we're behind schedule because of the swells. Finish this at 3:50, ready for snack. Diane's willing to play more, so from B-2 D-1 this morning to D-2 B-1 this afternoon, so we finish the day 3-all! Finish at 6:35, she to wash her hair, me to type this and wonder what to do next. The dining room had gotten so stuffy that my cool cabin actually felt good, so I decided to read more BH to 8PM, when I went to dinner. The duck "breast" was ALMOST OK on my plate, but across the way Vern and Pat ended up with what REALLY looked like a doctored LEG, and VERY tough! The chicken soup to start wasn't bad after being doctored with salt and pepper and crackers, and the apple tart at the end was OK. Just getting ready to return to my room when Andy says "Wanna game of Scrabble?" I say sure, and dash to get it at 8:50PM. We play to 10:15, quick for him, and I win by just under 100 points, but he's STILL cute! Back to this, then bed at 10:35PM.
THURSDAY, APRIL 11: Woke at "4:15" but my watch had stopped. Set it by the video time and tried WEARING the watch to keep it going. Woke again about 6, the watch stopped again, and had nothing better to do and felt voluptuous so I started a lazy teasing of my cock. It felt nice enough to concentrate on my body as it was, so I didn't even bother to get out the rubber bands, only reaching over toward the end to get the wooly sock out of the drawer, which I could do without getting out of bed. By the time I came, it didn't feel cold in the room at all, and I let it dry, including the post-cum, before turning over and going to sleep about 6:50AM, no trace of light around the porthole as yet. Bill (or maybe it IS Ian who does it) produced a wakeup call that I really DIDN'T feel like listening to, but I considered briefly the idea of not having breakfast, and it really didn't work, so I reluctantly crawled out of bed and put on clothes against the chill of the room, which was "up" to 17.5 degrees Centigrade, and got out at 7:55AM to shit and read the day's schedule, Graham at 9:30. Paul said that THEIR temperature was 16, which I had yesterday, but everyone agrees it gets stuffy if the air conditioning is OFF. Lots of sweaters at breakfast. Oatmeal with Jules spilling milk from his oatmeal on my slipper, then on the floor, and I ricocheted away from Rose's stepping on my toe by stepping on George's toe. Things are getting close and rough. Peter "endears" himself to me by TAKING the brown sugar spoon and bowl and PUTTING it down with a crisp THUNK, then TAKING the milk and putting IT down with a decided thump. Dear fellow, even to putting the milk PAST ROSE and the butter PAST ROSE to get it out of "his" place. Paul and Caroline look on without comment, though we all DO laugh as Ruth's "Anyone want toast" is SO loud that I say, quietly to my table, "I do," making Caroline grin, and making her GRIM when Paul "tells her the joke" that Ruth was talking too loudly, but she values the marriage enough to keep her council about KNOWING what he just told her. The pancakes are with banana (according to Rose) and peach (according to me), and the cook-made syrup strikes me as having rum, which Charles corrects to "almond extract." It's not bad, but the overwhelming STICKINESS of the breakfast ensures retentive bowels. Excuse myself from the table to go to my freezer, and write this by 8:50AM, next going to the DREAM file to see if I can recall either of the two VERY detailed dreams I had last night. Make that "excuse of a transcription" to 9AM, feeling that I MUST clean my teeth. Start reading BH and simply DON'T feel like stopping when Graham announces his talk about his English garden, without even TRYING to make it sound interesting, so I continue until I feel SO cold that I figure to go back to the reading room, but at 10:35AM the dining room door is STILL closed, and there's almost continuous vacuum noise so loud it sounds like drilling down the corridor, AND a pair of Russians seem to be using the space of outside deck just around the corner from my cabin for an arguing space, going on and on in increasingly loud Russian, so I feel that I've just GOT to get out of the room, so I go up to the BRIDGE to 10:45, where I see we're at 24 degrees. Down to the people left in the dining room and Charles says "Later" for Scrabble and Diane says OK at 10:50AM, stopping a game for "buffet" lunch of pizza with pepperoni and sausage and tomatoes, with quite GOOD crust this time, and I have three slices, joking back and forth with the half-slice from Olivia, who takes hers without both slices of pepperoni, so I give her one of them, so she gives me one of her tiny sausage slices, so I joke and give her a TEENY piece of chicken, and we talk of Zeno's Paradox. Melted coffee ice cream for dessert, and Diane and I go BACK to playing until 1:50, when we're finished three games, all of which I win, and then Charles says he'd like to play, the first of which I win with a score of 404, having gotten THREE bingoes, and the second of which I merely win, finishing at 3:50, when I have one of the first hot raisin cookies at 4PM when there's a call from Bill (oh, there'd been a call EARLIER for bottle-nosed dolphins under the prow, but when I went out with LOTS of others, the only thing I SAW was something that looked like a small seal porpoising toward the rear of the ship) for sperm whales. Outside with binoculars with many others, and there's a VERY close blowhole with a DISTINCT rim, though I was too excited to count TWO blowholes, and then a series of distant sightings during which the ship slowed and started slowly circling, and then the tiny dorsal fin was visible during many of the dives and there were clearly at least two whales, and then ONE started swimming RIGHT BEFORE THE PROW, about ten feet away, at least TWENTY feet visible as light-shaded flukes and a swatch of WHITE down the whole left side like a Japanese infinity sign---and I was surely seeing LESS than half the length of the bow-wave-riding cetacean: VERY exciting! Not possible to even THINK of cameras in such quick circumstances. This goes until 4:30, and then Bill calls a meeting downstairs, after which we see a few MORE blows (about 10 blows in all from AT LEAST two whales in less than half an hour). Andy starts the meeting at 4:40-4:47 with talks that it HAD to be a baleen whale because of the double blowhole, minkes are too small for this, it's smallish for a finback, unknown to be a sei so white, so it's PROBABLY a Brydes (pronounced like Brutus) whale which may be more white. Then Bill talks on Gomera from 4:47 to 4:57: Second smallest at 151 square miles, 20,000 people, National Park of Garunjenai around the 4900-foot peak, place of start of Columbus's second voyage, having deserted villages, 15,000 tourists per year, and noted for its palm honey. Then Tenerife from 4:57 to 5:10, which has 2,000,000 tourists per year, 200,000 inhabitants, and we have a half-day excursion to the tropical garden and wildlife park, where 120 pesetas are a dollar. THEN the group gets into an ENDLESS discussion of wanting to climb the mountain, and lots of us at LEAST want to get to the base of the funicular for the ride up, but since we don't know what the tour IS, we'll find out more when we dock VERY early tomorrow morning and have breakfast at 8 (9AM island time) and get another briefing before the tour starts then. Bob postpones his "Pirates II" talk till 5:30, but then the ship is STOPPED, and many of us go on deck to see the water being pumped out on the port side but NOT the starboard or aft drains. Look over in the preternatural silence, expecting piscine visitors, but none arrive by 5:35, though some see dolphins again, and down to read the article on Lanzarote from National Geographic while Bob gives his talk, and look through International Travel News, taking down an address on the side of my Scrabble score sheet. His talk is 5:50-6:50, and I get back to my cabin at 7:25 to record this to 7:45PM and start new NOTEBOKA, now at 7:50PM 4/11/96. Make all the copies and STILL feel like I have to shit (I THINK this is the THIRD time today: once before breakfast, once just before starting the second game with Charles this afternoon, and now at 7:55PM). So I do. Slices of cheese and tomato form a tasty appetizer, and the beef tenderloin with a Roquefort sauce is really tender and quite tasty, though the trout is rather fishy, and the home fries are quite delicious, while the veggies are just kale and carrots. Dessert is yet another apple tart, warm, good with milk. Pat gets into an ENDLESS discussion with Andy about bringing his prints from Canada into the USA, and then Bill has the good sense FINALLY to set the clocks ahead to local (daylight) time, so it's now 10:20PM! I ask about security and Bill said if we felt like it we could even have keys for our doors---YAY! He said he'd ask about the trip to the summit, and we were all nicely quiet. I try to reset the videocamera to the new time, but when I take the battery off the face goes quite dead, even though the battery WAS dead. Quite a mystery! Then the machinery BUZZES in my hand, and I get out the plate and do the eject-cycle and put the battery on charge, then take it OFF charge to do THIS. Debate showering, but decide tomorrow after any hill-climb would be much more appropriate. Olivia's here thru tomorrow, so I can pay her whenever. Docking about 7AM tomorrow, so I might be awake for that, so I hope to get to bed early tonight, which means before 11PM! Pack the bag with extra film, wallet, hat and binox, and put out sunscreen and pills. Bed at 10:40PM.
FRIDAY, APRIL 12: Wake at 1:15, watch still going; wake at 4:45, watch stopped, and get up to pee and peek through the porthole and see an ISLAND to port, bright lights ahead. Back to bed but my mind is racing so that I get UP again at 5:30AM and start dressing, actually getting a CHILL putting on my clothes: that deep-seated TREMOR that seems impossible to stop and colder than a mere shiver. Put jacket on and go up to bridge, which is totally dark except for garish red numbers and yellow silhouette of Tenerife. Glance briefly at the charts to see that it IS Tenerife, and out past two shadows on the bridge to the left wing to encounter Tony, who tries to tell me what everything is, including "three moles" and the distant lights of loading gantries. Can't even see the moon in the clouds, but there are lights ABOVE the lights of the town that seem to be from hills immediately behind the town. A large boulevard seems to bisect the town from the top of the central hill: when first seen, from top to bottom, it went from left to right; I MISSED it head-on, and next looked to see it sloping from right to left. A road seemingly cut in a cliff-face on the shore had cars at all hours coming down the hill: peons going to maintenance work. Tony said we were due to turn at 6:20, but though we seemed to, we were soon headed back to the dock-area to the far side of the town. A large cruise ship became visible, and Andy soon identified it as the Carousel: enormous! The oil storage units were visible as yellow cylinders lit by ground lights, and other ships became visible on and off-shore. When the moon cleared, it seem to indicate a sun direction impossibly north of where it should be in the east. Even without the wind, it was almost too chilly even for the windbreaker, and soon I took out the hood and put it up, which helped a bit. Glen and Jenny soon joined the little group, and just before 7AM a small set of lights revealed the little boat that brought out the pilot who wished me a brisk "Good morning" as he passed toward the bridge, which then became off limits. We were definitely going past the main part of town, toward a Rio-like rock looming over a stretch of dock, but we turned inland around the edge of a mole that ran out parallel to the shore, with barracks-like or time-share condominiums going up one slope in white lights, flanked by more elegant private homes with yellow lights on their irregular streets up the slope. When Frieda and Diane joined the group as a vague light began to dawn about 7:30AM, they said that THIS was Santa Cruz on the southeast, NOT Porto Cruz (or whatever) on the northwest, and that it was so far from the base of the mountain (there being NO road across the island, and it was too far AROUND the island) that it was unlikely that even a full DAY would suffice to scale the peak. With the islands at 16 degrees west, with our clocks set to one hour EAST of London, it shouldn't be a surprise that "dawn" is about 8AM! But the clouds, which I'd hoped would go away, seemed to close in as the clouds on top began to pinken at 7:45AM, and we actually docked, most dockers with jackets on, except for the captain in his short-sleeved epauletted uniform-shirt and a workman in short sleeves and a passing jogger in shorts, and Olivia says that the peak would require a sweater AND a jacket---if it's included. Down, still cold, to get into the dining room that's ALREADY open for breakfast at 7:55AM and get some oatmeal to feel warmer, then two hard-boiled eggs with two slices of toast, then a yogurt waiting for the announcement until 8:20AM, when the loudspeaker went to say that the ship had NOT been cleared yet, NO one could exit to town, everyone would meet for a briefing at 9AM and the tour would start shortly after that. I type this at 8:47AM, looking out the porthole to see it RAINING in the harbor, so I have to add the UMBRELLA to the stack of things to take; it's really getting to be a LOAD. Thoughts this morning, before rising, included projecting troubles with DON if he comes aboard: explaining who everyone is, making do with the cold and the limited facilities and the awful food and the unentertaining people for the four days before we hit London. The need to get cash TODAY before my ATM card expires; the desire to buy stamps; and the general want to see as much of the large town as possible in the single day; looking forward to the smaller town tomorrow. On deck: trying to convince my body that THIS is now NOT the tropics, and that it's ONLY EARLY SPRING---can't imagine ANYONE at the beach on a day like today, though Olivia reminds me that noon MAY be quite warm in town itself. Finish this up at 8:52AM, ready to get into the rest of the day: only FIVE days on-land and FIVE days sailing left! Vague thoughts of spending time in southern England and France JUST BEGIN to enter my mind, as well as thoughts of catching up on the Academy Awards and New York Timeses back in NYC. But more of THAT later, clearly. Note that the plant-sprig with the purple top is from Santo Antao. The meeting goes from 9 10 9:10AM and tells us that there'll be two tours: the short from 9:30 to 2:30 to the town and resort and park and zoo (that bus for 16 people seats 31), while the long from 9:30 to 5 will go THROUGH town to Las Cayanis National Park and the Visitors Center, then to the 3400 meter volcano, where the cable car for about $10 per person goes from 2000 meters to 200 meters from the top. The bus for the long tour has 50 seats for the 19 people, so it's NICELY roomy. Bill comes on the horn later to say that the shops in Santa Cruz are open till 8PM, and that includes the post office. We'll take our lunch WITH us. The exchange rate is 124 pesetas for $1, and we should buy our palm honey in Gomera tomorrow. We go out at 9:20 and besiege Bob at the top of the gangway to freedom till boarding busses at 9:35AM, me getting the second seat, raised behind the first seat, which has the microphone which the guide might displace someone to take. We sit in the busses while people negotiate various things, including whether we have English-speaking guides or not (the short-tour bus waits for an hour for a guide and STILL doesn't get one), and our leader, Bob, decides NOT to wait and we leave at 10. Take photo #16:12 down to Santa Cruz from Montana Grande after we drive along the waterfront past impressive office buildings and apartment blocks and condominium complexes on the hill above Santa Cruz, then get on the highway (which is said to be the most scenic on the island) to the National park with its many overlooks, and we stop at 10:30AM, then at 10:47 to clouds rising, and then take #16:13-16 at the 11:15 stop, pictures of Tiede and the town on the other side of Porto de la Cruz, and of the tart rocks of chocolate, strawberry, and mocha. At 11:30 stop at the information center, which is closed for renovations, and back down to the restaurant for videos of canaries in the cage and vistas of the mountain which has almost cleared of clouds, though we hear that the funicular (just find that Auto-Spell returns "NO ALTERNATIVES" when there is none to a spelling---just took a long time THINKING before!) is NOT running because of winds, and we can SEE the towers up the hill and SEE that it isn't running. Our bus is truly plush, the driver cheerfully answering questions in Spanish which Olivia comes to sit with me to translate for Bob to relay to the group, since Bob shushes Olivia when SHE tries to address the group as some kind of leader. The lower reaches of the island are greener than Cape Verde, filled with suburbs of Santa Cruz, universities, schools with soccer fields, and then little villages with houses perched overlooking Santa Cruz, many with tourist restaurants and shops. We pass dozens of busses, some of which have to stop while the opposing bus pulls VERY far into their lane to then take a sharp turn to align the body of the bus so they both can pass. The main road to the park was built during the 70s and obviously these busses are products of the 80s and 90s. In the park itself the main vista is of huge lava flows and eroded cliffs that were once inside cones and calderas. There'd been a fire over 2000 hectares or 4000 acres up the hillside, and we kept passing lumbering groups cutting down burnt trees and hillsides still scarred with charred needles or blackened lower trunks: the fire took place five months ago, the driver said. He called out the names of local sight-seeing points, telling about plants, and every so often Bob would straight-arm into the distance and announce "Bird!" most of which the birders had already seen. A few passengers had maps, and I got one of walking tours when we stopped at the restaurant, where I climbed up the rock-garden dining-area behind to get good shots over the volcano and the local plantings. We re-board at 11:50AM and get five minutes up the road to stop again 11:55 to 12:05 over nothing in particular, and I'm getting tired of this already: the scenery is volcanic-nice, but not THAT great, and the constant chatter of Bob and Olivia and Ruth is getting on my nerves. We stop at the spectacular outstanding rocks at 12:15, with dozens of cars and 5-6 busses rushing in and out every ten minutes, disgorging shouting groups of teenagers dashing about taking pictures of each other, while I debate taking shots of some of the nicer crotches, but there aren't too MANY nice crotches, and lots of kids are bundled up against the cold wind while others are manning it out with shorts and tee-shirts. They announce that this is the lunch stop, and that we can eat inside the bus if we want, which Vern and Pat do, but when I try to go in with my sandwich and soda the driver forbids me to do it. I take to a height overlooking the rocks and the lunar valley below and eat my roast beef and drink my 7-Up and then go down into the valley to throw my junk away and pee, while Sheila wanders even DEEPER into the valley for some unknown reason. We're all mooning about the bus and finally leave at 1:15, going down into the valley to stop at the Queen's shoe which I take and change from roll 16 to roll 17 from 1:10 to 1:25, getting THE BEST shots of a completely unobstructed snowy peak of Tiede, and they want to stop at the funicular base ANYWAY from 1:36 to 2PM, which has a john that I gratefully use, and take a shot of the ironic Christ with open arms waiting for the descent of the stalled tramway cars. We're then on our way down, stopping at 2:40PM for the birders to take a walk, and Bob crazily says that they should go ahead while we bring up the rear, but of course the birders STOP to look into the distance seriously with their binoculars, while we chatter and stumble and make noise BEHIND them. NOT the best deal! The driver said that the walk should take about 40 minutes, but Bob, to placate those who might not like walking, said it would probably take only 20 minutes, but as we continued walking up the road, moist under the continuous clouds, it was clear after about 15 minutes that it was NOT about to curve back, so Bob struck off on a tiny path to the left that led down to farmland in a valley, saying that this would turn around and join the road. I felt like saying all KINDS of negative things: his assumption that he knew where he and the country paths were going, his suggestion of a "combined" walk in the first place, his constant pointing out of things that most passengers had no interest in because they were looking at their feet in order to SURVIVE---but I didn't. I FELT all kinds of negative things: blaming the organization for not getting us an English-speaking guide, blaming Bob on his poor decision making and using Olivia as a sounding-board for his wacko ideas, and blaming myself for not extending a helping hand to the game Dorothy, plodding along like some demented old lady in a Dickens novel or the struggling Sheila, whom Seymour gallantly continued to assist over steep parts while having trouble himself. But some of the views from the valley were pleasant, and the path stayed relatively passable, except where he called back "If you find the right crossing, you'll find the path all right." But then dogs started barking and we came to a muddy pen where four or five extremely thin greyhound-type dogs were penned or, in one instance, leashed outside on a short leash so he couldn't come snarling at us, with unkempt dirty longish hair and scrapes or wounds nastily apparent. They continued barking as we passed, feeling like intruders and hoping to come to the road. To make things worse, it started raining, so I put my two cameras under my jacket, hoping it wouldn't get too wet to ruin them. I started walking more rapidly than the troop, partly to distance myself from their helplessness, partly to get away from Bob's stiff-armed "Bird!" or inane pointing out of trivia along the road. After following a little car (Bob said "Buenas dias" to the female driver, who gave him a dirty look, hopped back into her car after she unchained her driveway, not bothering to connect the chain after she drove over it) past where we thought the road WOULD be, but only finding another dirt road, and then I came to a turning that I thought was "the house at the corner of the road" and it wasn't---at last we DID come to the road, as it started raining harder, and I fairly raced two young men down the road, dodging traffic coming up, spying the bus parked at a restaurant below, and I waved away the driver's offer to open the bus, just going into the stuffy dim restaurant, looking at the locals eating, and went to use the non-operating john. As we came back, the driver opened the bus and by some miracle all of us returned about the same time, at 3:20, the walk HAVING taken 40 minutes---but the rain DID stop---and I was feeling QUITE OFF! We drove down through Orotava, a neat little hill town, and stopped in the sewing factory from 3:45 to 4:10, where I did a quick scan of the earnest little women delicately sewing away (had they started when they heard the bus drive up outside and all the rest is machine-made?), some of the fabrics available in the first room, then through a tunnel-like connecting hall to a second, larger, display room into which I was quickly followed by a security clerk, filled with souvenirs, booklets, knickknacks, clothes, jewelry, toys, plastic goods, handicrafts, pottery, and other stuff. At that I turned around and exited into the bright sunlight to check the neighborhood for other open shops, but the driver had selected well: there were none. Down the block for a guy sleeping on a bus-stop bench (the only tramp-like person I saw in the entire trip since the beggars at Cape Verde), some scenic shots up and down residential streets, with the best homes hidden behind eight-foot hedges of flowering bushes, stopping at an elegant Hispamer bank and returning to wait with the others for everyone to quit the factory. I don't think anyone bought anything. Vern and Pat had to be waited for as having wandered the farthest, talking of a crafts shop that they found. When we ask for a place to eat, he recommends the Fontana D'Oro, on Rambla, motioning "up there," and it turned out to be QUITE a distance away. At 5PM I get off the bus which stopped about halfway down the road separating the entrance to the various moles. We were told we're at "muella (moo-aye-yay/mole) sur" for taxi-purposes. He points to the Post Office and banks as "over there," and drops a few of us off. Bob and I stumbled about before finding the underpass leading to the main square "with the cross," a tall thin monument with a six-inch glass cross inlaid on each of four sides. Then he spots the "Correos" building, and I take a snap of an almost-naked warrior with kids posing jokily at the base of the monument before crossing the street. A kid screams as he swings through the swinging doors, and at the side are two windows for "Venta de sellos," and I wait for a couple of people before asking the woman if she speaks English. No. Take dollars? No, and she directs me to the basement of the Olympia building across the street. Cross, being stopped for at all crosswalks, and go in the SIDE door and have to traverse the ENTIRE maze of junk-shops below (no, be fair, SOME of them seemed to be fairly nice jewelry shops, but mostly uncustomered) before finding the Cambio. Plunk in $20 and get back a receipt and 2260 pesetas and a 25 centavo ARGENTINE coin, I later find out. Back to the bank about 5:25 and wait on the SECOND window through three customers to be told that I'm "filatelia" and have to wait for the same woman through three MORE customers, some of whom take a bit. But I console myself: I have to wait at the BROOKLYN post office longer than this! She takes my order for "uno de todos" after ensuring me that all the stamps are Spanish, and goes through the small number of definitives she has, checks me at 700 pesetas, then throws on a couple 100 and 200, followed by a single 1000 peseta stamp---over $8!---and then a couple of pairs at about 100 each, and totals 2240! Give her practically all my money and get out at 5:45 to find an ATM machine, put in my card, and it gives me 10,000 pesetas! I think that's great (though it can't give me my balance) and I get out 20,000 pesetas, along with a receipt. Fab! Up the main street, looking at all the shops, and see a road sign to the museum. In and up the stairs to two sexy plaster male nudes (but only TO the crotch), and a "No photo" sign. Look at books, but they're 1000 pesetas and not worth anything. Look quickly through the exhibits and out in about ten minutes, to tell the Malones that it's clean, nicely organized, it just has no QUALITY! Walk further inland after taking pictures of the clubhouse at the end of the museum-street, and go into the small park encircling a band shell, and get hackingly coughed at by a tattered beggar on a bench who wanted to attract my sympathy. Pass a restaurant that looks sleekly good, which I remember as Anuria, with a fixed-price menu at 2000 pesetas with three courses of 4 choices each. Continue up to the main park, full of kids and shops and tented pavilions along shaded walks with lots of people moving around and LOTS of flowers everywhere: very pleasant. Find that the next main street is the Rambla of some general, and ask a newspaper kiosk-woman for Fontana D'Oro and she brightens and points along the street. I walk along the central promenade, seeing old women and old men sitting out chatting in the evening, and finally find the Fontana down six or seven steps, advertising "Entrada for Self-Service Bar" and find a cruddy bar, blue-and-white checked tablecloths separated by iron grilles, and a generally fly-blown tacky quality. So I return to the ship from 7 to 7:30 to find, by great good luck, Diane and Olivia and Pam and Jenny strolling at the corner of the mole, coming into town. I tell them about the restaurant and arrange to meet them at a corner of the park. Back to the ship in the heat, change into suit pants and put my suit jacket over my hand in my pocket, and hope no one notices my salt-stained shoes. Out of the ship and dash back uptown, getting to the meeting-corner at 7:55; they arrive from the direction of the restaurant (past the modernistic triangular-planned gold building with reflective windows as some Canary Islands Ministry), and they FOUND it (oh, forgot as I came up the street I shopped Joe and Dick in a telephone shop, where I asked about Anuria and they came up with, just as I found it in the phone book under restaurants, as Ainara, on 10 Calle La Luna, and they say it's easy to find) and made reservations for five at 8:15PM! We walk up into a pleasant wood-paneled restaurant with linen cloths and napkins and he reads us "the menu of the day," letting us choose from four of each, so I ASSUME we're getting the fixed-price menu, so that when Olivia, the translator, asked the price, I figured the 2700 pesetas for each of the Luini and 2100 pesetas for each of the Bocinegra, it was TOTAL. When I order the foie gras, it turns out to be for TWO, so Diane joins me. When Olivia orders the mixed appetizer-meats, it's ALSO for two, so Jenny joins her. Pam insists she wants the mussels ALL for herself. The "amuse-bouche" is called a Spanish omelette, and it's delicious with eggs and potatoes in a mayonnaise-like sauce, which Pam doesn't recognize as eggs, to which she's allergic. We manage to finish the two plates of four each. I order a bottle of Mateus, which they pronounce ma-TAY-oose, and we're quickly very happy. A 3x5 chunk of inch-thick pressed foie gras is fabulously textured, not deadeningly fatty, and shared by all. The tray of meats has prosciuto, a Spanish sausage like merguez, and a delicious dried beef, all thin, in bite-sized pieces, and wonderfully tasty without being over-salty. I cadge a sample (she did NOT want to give it to me, with a smile) of mussels and it tastes like flavored creme fraiche, maybe the best mussel-based dish I've ever tasted. Both fish come out with the same meticulous presentation: a heap of what I took to be rice around the fish is punched through all around with a knife, then carefully lifted off in one piece to reveal the fish below---it's SALT! Then the skin is scored around and also lifted off in one piece and set aside. Then the quarters of flesh are carefully forked off and lifted in one piece, deftly turned, onto each plate to which is added two small delicious roast potatoes and a small salad topped by a slice of green pepper for one fish, red pepper for the second fish, and either rosetted radishes or flowered pimento. The Lubini (as he spells it) is a marvelously firm, but not chewy or oily, fish between sole and shark, delicately fishy, with only a very few large bones that are easy to remove. The Bocinegra is firmer, with distinct flakes like tuna, of a more chewy texture, but everyone agrees the fish are FABULOUS. Another bottle of wine (Olivia drinks only water, which we get a bottle of, without gas), and then the desserts: three get profiteroles, from which the SMELL of the hot chocolate is seductively delicious, stuffed not with filling ice cream but with light WHIPPED cream, which Pam says "is how they should be," but I counter with my four-day stay at La Cote D'Or as rebuttal. Two get lime sorbet, which is served in a parfait-glass with a straw, and it has cream added to soften the tartness of the lime zing. We're deliriously happy as we ask for the check, and then it's 24,400 pesetas! I gasp, struggle, and get out the 19,000 I'd brought assuming it would cover EVERYTHING we could possibly eat. But we were charged ala carte: fish at 6300 and 5400, appetizers about 600 each (for 1800), water 300, wine about 1400, desserts about 500 for 2500, but THAT only adds to 17,700, so we'd have to add five covers at about 200 each for 18,700, 10% tax for 20,570, and STILL lack 3830 of the total. It WAS a rip-off, as I'd only SUSPECTED before, and then we ADD 10% for a tip (Silly, silly, silly!) saying we should leave 27,000. They all ASSURE me that's OK, it was a GREAT meal, they're PERFECTLY content to pay that much. Diane tosses $20 into the pot, Jenny $40 at last, Pam gives her last $5 bill, and I calculate at their stated rate of 120 pesetas to the dollar: 27,000-19,000 =8,000. 8000/120=$67, so I toss in $2 and hand it to the GRATEFUL waiter, and I even ask the manager for a card, and he gives me two. We walk, very happy, back to the ship and I find great relief in taking off my clothes after going to the john, and at last get to bed at 11:35PM, happy but STILL put off at how a 2000 peseta dinner (without wine and tip, of course) could change into a $45 per person feast! But it was a GREAT end to the day!
SATURDAY, APRIL 13: 9:50AM: GOT to talk of this NOW! Bill finishes his briefing on Gomera, telling everyone (as far as I can tell) what all the FACTS are, and the RECEPTION of the facts is BOGGLING: Diane shouts out to say she's not going into the zodiacs, Ruth complains about a zodiac landing, Peter keeps asking if we'll need boots, at which Bill admits none of them have EVER been here before, they DON'T know what the pier is like, so they can't tell anyone how to dress. Bill's talk of full of the fact that NO one is talking to him, but everyone blames it on HIM. (11:35AM 4/14:) At 1:35AM the loudspeaker wakes me: "Bill, come to the Captain's cabin." I think MAYBE all those loud announcements have been about some wildcat crew STRIKE! Then I note a dream (see DREAM2, page 6, line 14), and then at 1:48AM there's ANOTHER Russian "statement," which is repeated TWICE, and I'm glad I didn't hear all the STARTING ones, and how DARE they keep the PASSENGERS awake? The call for breakfast is only at 7:53AM and I'm up at 7:55 to have oatmeal and get two soft-boiled eggs with toast, getting another (or this was YESTERDAY, since I remember warming my hands with it from being on deck so long) for lunch which I'd have on Sunday, and at 8:25AM Bill's announcement comes on: "No pilot", and I go to the bridge to find we're at (as I recall) 28 degrees four minutes north, and 24 degrees 4 minutes west, aiming into Gomera. I brush teeth while reading BH to page 693, and at 8:31AM Bill says "Please stand by," and at 9:07 he says "Still negotiating" and at 9:23 "Pulling anchor and going to 400 yards of pier." At 9:36 we're TO the meeting, which goes from 9:38 to 9:48AM, saying he's been trying since 6AM to contact them, that we HAD to wait for the pilot, that the bus was there for us to see everything on the island in 3.5 hours, and confession that "No one's awake yet on Gomera." Laughs that the Brits and Australians needed VISAS to come here, so they're here ILLEGALLY, so their passports would NOT be stamped. I type to 10:03AM, and Olivia comes in to buy the rest of my pesetas, which I sell her at the rate from the restaurant of 120 (losing 7% from my purchasing them at 113), so my 10,000 are worth $83.33, and since I owed her $10 and change from before, took off $3 for the wine she didn't drink which means she owed me $18 from last night, she gives me two $50 bills and $1 for $101 and we're totally clear. Pam comes in to say she has two $20 US traveler's checks that she'll try to get Ian to cash for her, which would square us, OR she'll give me the equivalent in English pounds that I can use ashore next Sunday. Jenny later gives me $5 on deck to clear her debt, and Diane knows what she owes me and will talk to me Monday. I clear up the restaurant debts by saying that the 27,000 pesetas at the restaurant's rate of 120 comes out to $225 dollars, divided five ways into $45 even. Remark that Ainara is translated as Golondrina, which means Swallow. I'm left with 465 pesetas in change. At 10:12AM comes the welcome news that we're docking, and passengers who've decked themselves out in raingear and boots grumble that they have to change again. At 10:15AM I'm up on top to take photo #17:19 of Gomera and the hydrofoil from Tenerife, and other shots. At 10:45 we're docked and going ashore. As we wait, at 10:50 the hawser breaks like a thread, and at 10:56 we're still waiting, and the guide passes out books on Gomera. At 11:13 we board the bus at LAST, with a CUTE driver and guide's "sidekick" as someone calls the long-haired girl-faced teenager. At 11:19 the ODD-accented (until later he confesses to be GERMAN, which explains a lot!) guide starts his CANNED-sounding talk, "Captain is coming---WOW." We're off at 11:25, and from 11:40 to 11:50 we're stopped at the Mirador Locarna, taking lots of shots over the spectacular formerly-terraced mountain slopes and waterways. The guide DOES give good information about local birds and flowers, if you can separate the data from the intonation and breathy gasps: I describe him as having heard too many David Attenborough recordings, and Olivia agrees that he gives every word the Attenborough portentiousness. At 12:05PM we're over Hermengua (which I'd put down as Hermangildo, after that strange portrait in the museum of a saint that I thought was a woman until I saw "her" beard and mustache, and then "he" became a VERY effeminate man. Take the last pictures of roll 17 and put in roll 18. Stop at 12:20 in Los Telares, in the Convent, for handicrafts and a bar that wanted 500 pesetas for 150 ml. of the palm honey (really a syrup) that I later saw in town for 400 pesetas, but I thought of traveling three more weeks with a jar (and someone said Andy BROKE his already) that could break and infect a whole bag and gave up the idea. Get samples of the "brandy" which is more like heavy wine, which is tasty but not worth 800 pesetas, and I video empty looms in the basement, the best part of the house, rather than all the palm-leaf flowers and dolls and baskets. Bill buys TWO of the acrylic-wool "bleeding-color" wool sweaters for about $60 apiece, and then tries to sell one (as a joke, I hope) for $70. Emory is impressed with the idea of the guide bringing his busload here and getting a cut of what everyone buys, saying he'd like to take it back to his islands, but I caution him by saying it was certainly present in Porto Rico and PROBABLY in many of his islands ALREADY. Leave there at 12:50 and the oleaginous guide "invites us as friends, so we can appreciate what he so much appreciates" into a church which has little of value, but which everyone religiously camcords with their machines, and I'm SURE the Russians will have MUCH of junk on their films. The "House of Culture" is closed, and we leave at 1:05, starting to be hungry. Up and up, higher and higher, more impressive views and more flowering yucca and wildflowers EVERYWHERE, really at the height of their bloom: daisies and sage and marguerites and their brand of dandelion and wonderful purple clumps underscored with white. At 1:35PM we stop at the Information Center as clouds begin rising up from the valleys, and I step away from the crowds to eat my peanut butter and jelly sandwich with the 7-Up provided by the bus, with a fresh red pear that was slightly under-ripe but still juicy, and a hardboiled egg that turned out to be double-yolked! Look at the music video (taping some of the lovely melody) in the Museum, not realizing until 2:30 that there was a BIGGER presentation in a real THEATER with CHAIRS in the Information Building itself, which had good dioramas, 3-D binocular viewers, information about the Laurisilva that I finally realized was just rain forest, and lots of books on sale. Diane is moping around looking for a spare 1000 pesetas, but I don't bother to dig into my change of 465 to give her any. By the time the bus driver is back at 2:35, the paths are covered with fog, but the guide doesn't seem to want to acknowledge it, joking at first "Oh, now I can say the Tower of Pisa is on the left, with the Pyramids and the buildings of Parliament on the right." But he KEEPS on saying: to your right you can see... and to your left you can see..., as if he WERE taped only. At 3PM we stop at Laguna Grande and he insists it's only a ten-minute walk, but Rose balks at the bottom and has to be practically lashed into returning to the bus. We walk through the quiet forest (thank goodness I'd gotten ahead of them to tape a few silent panoramas, in only one of which the strolling couple of Tony and Jenny can be seen, and it really seems that they and the Malones and Dorothy DEMAND to be the farthest out, the longest away, and the most difficult to return to the bus, as if it were some kind of bizarre contest rather than actually SEEING anything. Calvin keeps looking back at me on the path as if I'd want to pass him because he was going too slowly (and reverently) for my tastes. We walk to 3:25PM, seeing NOTHING LIKE a Grand Lagoon, and then quickly pass a number of miradors and some futilely parked cars, and my viewpoint is getting grimmer and grimmer. At 3:50 we actually stop for a two-sided view and there's mostly fog on both sides, to 4PM. Finally around 4:10-4:15 we're BELOW the fog, above St. Sebastian, stopping for good pictures in the now-warm sun, but it's still VERY windy. At 4:30 we're off at Columbus's tower, which was almost completely fenced away from tourists (though someone said it HAD to be a reconstruction), and there were two wells that I thought MUST be the ones he got water from, but then someone tells me they were in an enclosure BEHIND the Tourist Information Office in town, which I saw but didn't know to ask for. Off in town, but it's VERY hot, and I try going by the beach, where there's a dark-skinned Afro-headed white swimming in the surf, but I don't have the nerve to video him. Note people clambering over the lighthouse-rocks, but it's just too HOT, so I return to the ship at 4:50, recharge the battery, and from 5 to 5:10 videotape the last of tape 3 on the rooms, johns, showers, and snacks of the ship. At 5:30 I'm walking back to town, trying and being refused 20,10,and 5K pesetas at the first machine, then trying the SECOND and getting 5,000 and think it ATE the card, but I found it in my wallet that evening! Figured I'd gotten 35,000, which was LESS than $300 for one day. Trudy says to see Dona Maria Gertrudis Ponze de Leon's tombstone in the church, which I'd gone in but was put off by the 1796 date on the cornerstone. Hic jacet, no date. Back to beach and THERE'S Olivia and Jenny and Tony, but THEY don't want to dine with me, and Olivia opts out even though she says she LIKES the look of the Marques de Orestania and the thought of the band concert at 8 in the church, but "takes a bye" and hopes we might meet in Santa Fe. I enter to dine and order a veal chop, big and tasty under a mushroom sauce, with two salted-skin cold new potatoes and a bit of tasty cole slaw under another flowered radish, plus a half-bottle of Bach for 750, paying 100 for bread and butter. Pay with visa 2,050 pesetas, with no place for a tip, even though I say tip, and she corrects my "conto" to "cuenta." To church to find a WEDDING, sit and film the kids, one a DOLL of a Matthew Broderick type that EVERYONE would eat up, and the guy next to me strikes up a conversation, and he's a Brit, having lived here for four years and loving it (after a tragedy made him move?), loving the band and its leader, saying we would have had clouds EVEN in the morning, and that the wind WAS unusual. The concert is 9:35 to 10:15, parts of which I film, and the cute kid has a trombone SOLO, so I know his NAME. He walks me home, telling me about La Ceta (the Mushroom) 20 minutes from Funchal-port, order Espatada, and then dress and go to Reid's hotel for ballroom dancing, then to old town's Marsalino's Pan et Vino for authentic fado music, only about 1000 escudos. He meets people he knows, introduces me to them without knowing my name, and leaves me at 10:50 with a handshake. No one's watching the gangway as I make my way to my room and chat with Joe and Goodings to 11 and get to bed at 11:20PM, as I say: struck that I HAVE my ATM card. Leave junk to put away the next morning, only putting the battery for refreshing and charging.
SUNDAY, APRIL 14: 8:40AM: Friday and Saturday not yet finished in transcription, yet I must start today. Woke twice during the night, both times with the ship moving, but I didn't bother to check the watch at all. Both times I had memories of dreams of frustration, both of which I didn't take notes on, both of which I've forgotten. Wakeup call came as rather a jolt at 7:45AM, and I got out of bed at 7:50 and went to the john that still had its light off: I guess that'll be true until the end of the trip. In to find that Ruth and Frieda had taken over the places next to the Samsons and Kahlbaums, so I took my oatmeal to the first table, and then had to go to the next table to take a soup spoon, which got the entire table into a conversation on cutlery: the American "spoon and tablespoon" have the Scots and Australian equivalents "spoon and dessert spoon", with a smaller spoon called a tea spoon and an even smaller spoon called a demitasse spoon, while a spoon marginally larger than THEIR dessert spoon would be called a TABLE spoon, which Jenny neatly explained by saying "would be put on the table for serving vegetables to those at the table." Two pancakes with berry syrup, an orange, and grapefruit juice with pills (I'd taken a Bonine at 7:50, when I felt the slightest unease on getting out of bed in the rocking boat in swells too small to even produce whitecaps), and left the dining room at 8:30. Bill had come out at 8:10 (surprising everyone) apologizing for the lack of a daily schedule, saying "But both today and yesterday will be included in your packet as you leave," (which I MIGHT believe, but I'll STILL collect the sheets each day just to make SURE I have them), saying Bob will give "Pirates III" at 9:30 and Graham will have an afternoon talk, and saying that the crew was up VERY late last night because they didn't want to leave in the wind, the pilot didn't want to have them leave in the wind, and there was delay over the papers admitting them to Madeira, but no good Captain will leave ONE port without having admission papers to the FOLLOWING port. So at least we seem to be on schedule: Dorothy said that when undocking woke her this morning, she continued to see lights from an island out her porthole, and she thought it might be Lanzarote, which was to our north. Finish THIS day to date at 8:50AM. Then work on Friday's journal, stopping at 9:30 to attend Bob's lecture on "Pirates III", starting at 9:35 with the Lafitte brothers, who went from smuggling to slave trading to arms running to Mexico against the Spanish. His last tale concerned Levassier "The Buzzard" who, in 1721, raided a Portuguese ship from Goa containing the Archbishops treasure of gold and CASKETS of diamonds, which Butin (using initials BN) looked for, but the Cross of Goa (solid gold encrusted with diamonds, maybe melted down) has never been found. Cruse Wilkins digs for treasures in the Seychelles in the 1930s, finding some little caches; he's dead but his family is still trying. I mention Oak Island in Maine, and Dick verifies that he's heard of it too. This ends at 10:40 (the attendance is down to the Kahlbaums, Vern and Pat, Don and Ann, Dorothy and Ruth and Frieda, and Armand and Seymour and me, and Dick and Andy, less than half the passengers), he handing my pointer back to me, and I catch this up to date by 10:50AM, ship rocking through the sunshine, cabin not quite so cold: 21 degrees. Finish transcribing Friday by 11:30AM. Work on yesterday's trip until noon, when I go to pee and have lunch. Lunch is not THAT bad, but certainly low: "Chinese" style greens atop rice served with soy sauce, followed by either bitter or under-ripe papaya on which is placed a scoop of the berry-sauce, rather like cranberry sauce except with "those" berries. Finish about 12:30 when Diane and I start Scrabble, playing three games which I win, ending about 3PM when Charles and Rita come down and Charles and I play a game until 3:50 that I win, and he goes upstairs to prepare to come back down for a snack: SUCH a busy day! I come back to the cabin to find my laundry back from three days ago, and finally I can put on a clean shirt and put this one out to the laundry, along with my last laundry slip---no, I guess I should KEEP this shirt for hot days on Madeira and have it cleaned AFTER. Catch up to this just before 4PM, when I go to pee and have a snack. Have two raisin cookies and chat with Frieda, who offers "tea" ten minutes from Waterloo Station, "if we're in town, but we may be in the country. I said I'd take directions from her later, including what to see in Bath, which she highly recommends. Then I escape about 4:25, to avoid being taken in my Graham's "Birds of an English Garden II," and Frieda and I agreed that his slides of Tenerife and Australia were rather boring. Finish Saturday's journal by 5:05PM, ignoring Graham's two pleas to attend, NOT being influenced by his "beautiful sunsets at the conclusion." Puh-lease! Chat with Frieda about Don's possibly arriving TOMORROW, and I can hardly believe it's THAT far along. In a week I'll be in England! Debate filling this page with drivel, but decide to relax by reading BH. Read to 6:15, then on the bridge to 6:50 to get "Good afternoon"ed so intensely by the Captain that I could only stammer "Hello," and Seymour greeted him like a son, shaking and patting his hand and hoping he had a wonderful Easter, and Dolores showed him her foot and he pressed his heart and said she must feel it as better from THERE, as well as from the head. He charmed everyone in 20 seconds flat! Heavy spray over the bridge windows even on a seemingly fairly placid sea at 34 degrees North, about 100 miles from Madeira! Back to read at 7:15, stopping fatigued at page 771, and to top deck to sit mesmerized by the waves until 7:50, when I get down to pee and have dinner of decent beef tenderloin with mushroom sauce, boiled potatoes tasty with butter, and an awful salad of bok choi and beet-root. Then Diane asks what I'm doing this evening; "Well, Diane, what are YOU doing this evening?" or "Well, Diane, what would you LIKE me to do this evening?" So we play Scrabble from 9 to 11, and she actually WINS two of three, becoming the day's champion. Tired back to cabin to catch up with this at 11:10PM, putting the computer on the floor in the rocky seas, peeing in the sink, and getting to bed at 11:20PM, tired!